How I disarmed his suspicions I do not know; but in the weeks that followed before he was taken to prison we came to know each other very well. The prison life was hard on George, so hard that when I first saw him in the convict stripes I did not know him, so emaciated had he become; and I was startled when his smile disclosed his identity. Clearly he would be fit for no honest work when released from prison. He made no complaint--he did not need to, for his appearance told the story only too well. George was an insignificant-looking man, only one of the hundreds consigned to that place of punishment, and by mere chance had been given work far beyond his strength. When I called the warden's attention to George he was immediately transferred to lighter work, and was in better condition when I saw him next time.
And then we had some long and serious talks about his way of life, which he invariably defended on the score that he would rather be "a downright honest thief" than to get possession of other people's property under cover of the law, or to grind the poor in order to pile up more money than any one could honestly possess. George _thought_ that he really believed all business men ready to take any unfair advantage of others so long as their own safety was not endangered.
With the expiration of this term in prison George's letters to me ceased for a while, to be resumed later from a prison in another State where he was working in the greenhouses and had become interested in the flowers. That gave me my chance.
In a fortunate hour I had encountered a little story by Edward Everett Hale, "How Mr. Frye Would Have Preached It," and that story had formed my ideal of loyalty to my prisoners when once they trusted me, and by this time I had won the confidence of George. Accordingly, I wrote George a Christmas letter making a direct appeal to his better nature--for I knew it was there--and I asked him to come to me on his release the following July, which he was glad to do.
Now, my mother had always been sympathetic with my interest in prisoners, and she dearly loved her flower garden, and had difficulty in finding intelligent help in the care of her flowers. She knew that George was just out of prison, and after introducing him as a man who might help her with her roses I left them together.